Tavis Smiley: More Examples of Christians Than Muslims Blowing People Up in America

Tavis Smiley claims that terrorist activities by Christians happens quite often in the United States. Not only does he make the claim that Christians do terrorism, but there are more terrorist acts done by Christians than by Muslims.

Mr. Smiley expressed these thoughts on a program hosted by Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).

Here are his exact words:

“Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that’s what Columbine is – I could do this all day long. There are so many more examples of Christians – and I happen to be a Christian. That’s back to this notion of your idealizing Christianity in my mind, to my read. There are so many more examples, Ayaan, of Christians who do that than you could ever give me examples of Muslims who have done that inside this country, where you live and work.”

Incredible.

I don’t have cable so I must have missed all the Christian terrorist acts that have been occurring here in America.

Mr. Smiley is myopic.

My best guess as to why he thinks this is that he has been completely indoctrinated from his progressive teachers and professors to the point that he can say such incredulous claims with a straight face.

The Columbine shooters were probably baptized. Barring any formal apostasy, they would be considered Christian.

I think we can more safely say that extremists commit extreme acts of violence. Some of these extremists have religion as a philosophical substrate in their lives. And some of that subset are Christians.

Are there more baptized Christians committing terrorism than Muslims? I don’t know this is a helpful question: Whose extremists are worse? The orthodox Christian keep watch over his or her own personal conduct, prays for and attends to victims of violence, and is careful not to cause vexation to others. The question of whose bad guys are worse is comic book fare: Whose archenemies are the baddest, Batman or Superman?

Obviously, TS is referring to the muslim film makers that were stabbed to death for insulting St. John the Baptist; and the al Jazeera reporter that was beheaded while “covering” the 1993 Waco government massacre of innocent women and children.

At least, he didn’t make the accusation that 9/11 was an inside job or that “they” deserved to get murdered by muzzy mass murderers.

Thank God for small mercies.

In conclusion, that guy looks and sounds like the incompetent, felonious poseur currently “slumming it” in the White House. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

The trul sad thing is that some people that listen to this tripe will bring in up in the future as gospel..so much for “public broadcasting” .and this self admitted “Christain ” i am suprised he did not mention the Crusades.

Wrong again, Todd. The examples of baptized Christians commiting atrocities for motivations that have nothing to do with their religious beliefs (assuming they even have any) cannot be compared to practicing Muslims who are motivated to commit atrocities precisely because of their religious beliefs. But of course you’re smart enough to know that already, but just can’t resist making your typically lame point.

He was speaking of acts inside this country. Given that our country is roughly 5% Muslim and 65-70% Christian, his statement shouldn’t be shocking. It is little different than saying there are more white people on welfare than black people on welfare. While I prefer a narrower definition of terrorism – for example, I don’t consider the incident at Fort Hood to be terrorism – there is little doubt that postal shootings and what not would be considered terrorism under many people’s definition of it, particularly when they don’t confine terrorism to being what Muslim’s do. But like the welfare example, this isn’t all that significant. There is gross poverty in the black community and the fact that there are more white people on welfare doesn’t change that. Likewise, the likelihood that more Christians have committed terrorist acts in this country doesn’t change the fact that there is a real and substantive movement that actively seeks to terrorize Americans under the banner of Islam.

Extremist Christians and Muslims have different targets in the US. The former targets the government, and the latter both the government and civilians. Christian extremists as we saw at Waco, Oklahoma City, and Jonestown have no problem morally with involving large numbers of innocents in violence.

It may be easier for Christians to disavow such acts since Christianity hasn’t had a full-scale civil war since the 17th century. But as we saw in 1204, even Catholic-sponsored missions were not above going all Galatian on other Christians.

Muslims are by far the greatest targets of their own violent extremists. I can appreciate that most Muslims want to avoid antagonism that might have deadly results. And we see from the Catholic internet that few are scorned as deeply and insultingly as pro-lifers who appear to deviate from the straight and narrow.

Are Muslim extremists a greater threat to conservative white Americans than Christians? Sure they are. Who’s more likely to die at the hands of a Muslim extremist? Another Muslim, hands down.

Again, I don’t think the AC line of reasoning here is helpful, either to us as Christians or Americans.

“Christian extremists as we saw at Waco, Oklahoma City, and Jonestown have no problem morally with involving large numbers of innocents in violence.”

Vernon Wayne Howell, aka David Koresh head of his sect of the Branch Davidians, taught that he was Christ. Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma City bomber was an agnostic. Jim Jones, who started out as a card carrying member of the Communist Party, derided Christianity and taught that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Buddah, Lenin and Father Divine. By 1978 he was a self-proclaimed atheist.
Calling any of these fruit loops Christian is rubbish.

Self-hating liberals and Smiley can have their opinions (Plato: Opinion is not truth.).

They cannot make up facts.

Waco was federal violence against an armed sect that had not committed terrorism. Did the fed police preclude Branch Davdian terror by massacring them? How does federal police killing 83 citizens compare with OBL planning and committing mass murders to punish America for having troops in Saudi, supporting Israel, etc.?

Yeah, OK City bombing was a perverted attempt by a couple persons to get obscene revenge for the Waco massacre of women and children. How is that Christian? The Q’ran and Hadith are full of exhortations to conquest, mass murder, and terror. The history of Mohammedanism a lengthy catalog of invasions, conquests and massacres. Try reading it.

Jonestown was a suicide – violence against self – en masse. How does that compare with muslim murder bombers?

The Q’ran and Hadith are full of exhortations to conquest, mass murder, and terror. The history of Mohammedanism a lengthy catalog of invasions, conquests and massacres. Try reading it.

T. Shaw, it’s much easier to pretend that Muslim violence is in fact a perversion of true Islam, that way one absolves oneself of any untoward un-pc feelings. Sadly, the opposite is the case, as a majority of Islamic scholars and practitioners either embrace violence or agree with the end goal of terrorism: the imposition of sharia law. To even imply that there is a corresponding tenet within Christianity is engage in willful ignorance.

The Columbine killers weren’t Christians. In fact they killed a girl because she said she believed in God.

Timothy McVeigh was an agnostic.

The People’s Temple folks started out as Christians, but by the time of Jonestown had long since explicitly rejected Christianity.

The only group Todd mentions that even claimed to be Christian was the Branch Davidians, and whatever you think of them, they didn’t actually engage in any terrorist acts, but were killed when the government raided their facilities. And, of course, while the Waco Davidians considered themselves Christians, no one else did (whereas most everyone considers Atta a Muslim).

It is ironic that in an attempt to show some kind of parity between Christians and Muslims when it comes to terrorism, Todd keeps picking examples of people who were not Christians.

If one wants to cite terrorist/militant groups that are Christian, and in some sense point to Christianity as part of their cause, you pretty much have to go abroad. One could cite, with varying degrees of legitimacy, the IRA, the Orange militias, some Lebanese Christian groups back around the time of their civil war, and some Croatian extremists back in the 90s (and 40s).

Now really, these were more nationalist militant groups of groups which identify as some form of Christian — more like the PLO than like Al Qaeda. Whether these should “count” is probably open to question. What this boils down to, however, is a basic difference which for some reason people are very hesitant to admit: Islam is, in it’s origins, explicitly militant, while Christianity is explicitly not. This is a basic theological difference between their founders and their sacred writings which no degree of equivalency will get beyond. The fact need not necessarily upset Muslims. If their religion is true, and ours is false, then it is not a defect that it has from its very founding lived, in part, by the sword. If Muhammad’s revelation is true, then this is how God wanted it to be, and there is no reason to be ashamed of it.

None of this, however, really help’s Smiley’s claim which Todd is trying to back up, which is that there is significantly more terrorism in the name of Christianity in the US than there is in the name of Islam.

If one wants to cite terrorist/militant groups that are Christian, and in some sense point to Christianity as part of their cause, you pretty much have to go abroad. One could cite, with varying degrees of legitimacy, the IRA, the Orange militias, some Lebanese Christian groups back around the time of their civil war, and some Croatian extremists back in the 90s (and 40s).

What this has to do with it, considering we’re talking about a transnational, i.e. “catholic,” church, I have no idea.

It sure is interesting how Christian origins are discussed in different contexts. If you people were talking to a Christian pacifist, you would argue that Christian origins have little to do with nonviolence, and that Jesus in fact used and perhaps even encouraged violence. When comparing Christianity to “Islam,” suddenly you’re interested in invoking the peaceableness of Christian origins.

If you people were talking to a Christian pacifist, you would argue that Christian origins have little to do with nonviolence, and that Jesus in fact used and perhaps even encouraged violence.

Let me see if I have this right: you’ve just attempted to refute me by saying what I would argue in a hypothetical, then followed up by charging me with being a hypocrite for having committed those hypothetical actions you have imagined.

Got it…

But since you ask the question, you’re making an implicit assumption that there are only two possible positions: pacifist non-violence and the use of holy war to spread the faith.

I would disagree with the pacifist claim that early Christianity taught that violence was never acceptable under any circumstances, that a soldier cannot be a Christian, etc. However, when I talked about Islam being “militant” in its origins I meant not “accepting soldiering as morally acceptable in protecting the civic order” (which is a uniquely pacifist use of the term) but rather “using military force and an explicitly expansionist fashion to spread the faith and political control at the same time”. The Caliphate was a direct and clear continuation of the way that Muhammad himself led the faith, with political authority and the sword in hand. Christ, on the other hand, taught that his kingdom was not of this world, and even with the Caesaro-papism of the East, beginning under Constantine, there was always a clear division understood between secular and religious authority, with clerics forbidden to bear the sword because they were consecrated to a higher task.

There is a very real distinction here, for those willing to understand the history involved rather than insisting on a neat dualism between “non-violence” and “militarism”.

Timmy, you are a textbook troll, and you are banned from this blog. Go to other venues where shrill invective is considered to be an adequate substitute for evidence and reasoned debate. You have nothing to offer but insult and hate.

My understanding is Jonestown was a suicide that only killed the participants, Waco was an act of violence by the government against the participants (again, only killing the participants) and that OKC counts as a terrorist act, but had nothing to do with Christianity. Three stikes. (And Columbine had nothing to do with Christianity, but deranged teen outsiders who were mentally unstable – in fact, it was more an act of violence against Christians – so make that four strikes, one extra for good measure).

I just rewatched the video, and you know what, I didn’t realize that acts of Christian terrorism occurr “every day.” “Every day” acording to the ironically serious Tavis Smiley.
I wonder if Mr. Smiles is familiar with Goebel’s Big Lie Theory, because he would be very proud.
[No I am not calling Tavis a Nazi; I simply comparing his lies about Christian terrorists daily attacking the US, comparable to what Goebel’s said about the Czesolovakians treatment of the German speaking people in the Sudetanland. Come on; stop being outraged it’s totally comparable.]